Sports economics books seem to be plentiful these days. The 2007 season brought two new monographs: Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in Baseball by Vince Gennaro and The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed by J.C. Bradbury. Each attempts to tackle a distinct area within the grasp of economic analysis.

Diamond Dollars is the more ambitious of the two. Gennaro assays nothing less than an uncovering of the mysteries of the baseball economy and purports to offer a model for small market teams to be successful. Gennaro covers a wide range of issues, from the relationship between winning and revenues, to the value of players, the dynamics of player development, a strategy for assembling a winning team and building a team brand.

Along the way, Gennaro reveals a basic understanding of the economics of baseball and, although not a formally-trained economist himself, a reasonable understanding of rudimentary microeconomic analysis. He addresses many disparate topics, but his core concept is the “win curve.” While there is nothing particularly novel here, Gennaro’s presentation puts a different spin on the marginal revenue of winning. Basically, he argues that the relevant range of wins per season is between 70 and 105. Below 70 or above 105 wins, he asserts, there is no relationship between winning and revenues. Within the range, there is a sweet spot between 86 and 91 wins that is the threshold for making it to the postseason, and, consequently, it is within this sweet spot that there is the highest incremental return to winning. Making it to the playoffs, according to Gennaro, has its biggest impact by increasing a team’s revenues in succeeding years. For teams below 70 wins, Gennaro’s thesis is that winning a few extra games brings them essentially no new revenue, meaning they have little incentive to spend on free agents, whether or not they receive transfers from the wealthy teams.

So far, so good. But here Gennaro hits a brick wall. His text suggests that he has subjected his theory to rigorous modeling and testing, yet he provides the reader with next to no information on how he has executed his empirical analysis. The few bits of explanation he does provide fail to inspire confidence.

For instance, Gennaro apparently has done some regression analysis where revenue is the dependent variable and team wins in the current and previous years are two of the arguments. We are not informed what the other independent variables are, nor are we told whether the relationship is tested linearly, nor for what years it is tested. Curiously, Gennaro does state that he has weighted the current and lagged team wins equally and that he has run a regression separately for each team to capture its distinct win curve. It is not clear how many years of data he has in each team regression or why he did not instead use team dummies and interactive variables in a pooled regression to identify these effects.

Furthermore, Gennaro estimates his revenue data. Here he makes some reasonable assumptions, but he also misses his target on some sources of revenue. Despite these problems, Gennaro intrepidly forges ahead, glibly making specific claims about various teams’ win curves. Unfortunately, most of the rest of Diamond Dollars suffers from similar weaknesses.

Detailed problems appear throughout the book. Here is a small sample of these difficulties. Gennaro does not adequately source his discussion. The few footnotes and citations he does provide often confuse or obfuscate the matter. He claims that he has developed a model to evaluate players’ productivity, but he neither explains the model nor does he cite the pioneering work of Gerald Scully in this field or its lineage. Later in the book, Gennaro appears to assert authorship of the idea that baseball’s revenue sharing would be more effective if it were based on the value of a team’s market, rather than on a team’s revenue. Yet this position has been amply discussed in the professional and journalistic literature. Indeed, it is even incorporated into MLB’s latest collective bargaining agreement, which Gennaro entirely misses.

Gennaro also makes inaccurate claims about financial data. For example, he states that the NFL “generates over $2.5 billion in annual broadcast revenues” and that “about 80 percent of the NFL’s $5 billion in revenue is shared” (p. 4). The correct numbers would be over $3.5 billion, about 70 percent, and over $6 billion. On the next page, he writes that “$40 million from MLB’s central fund” is distributed equally to each team annually. The actual number in the last two years has been under $30 million. Such errors are not catastrophic, except when one tries to make detailed claims about a team’s revenue or a player’s value.

Gennaro devotes an entire chapter to teams’ player development systems. Here too there are broad generalizations and data inaccuracies that mar his discussion. He estimates that an average team devotes $12 million yearly to its player development system (scouting, signing bonuses, operation of minor league affiliates.) The actual average is almost 50 percent higher. In a footnote, however, Gennaro states that his estimate excludes international scouting and bonuses, perhaps accounting for the lower number. Yet, it is curious why he would exclude the international aspect of player development, when today almost half of all minor leaguers come from outside the continental United States.

One of the book’s concluding chapters is entitled “A Strategic Approach to Assembling the Roster.” Here Gennaro uses his hidden statistical method to find that the ratio of player productivity to player salary reveals that per dollar of output pitchers cost 14 percent more than position players and that left-handed pitchers cost 17 percent more. The inference is that team general managers should be particularly cautious in overpaying for these positions. The important question that Gennaro does not address is that if his estimates are correct, why doesn’t the market correct itself over time? And if the market does correct itself, what is left of his policy recommendations? The unstartling punch line of this chapter is that low-revenue clubs can be successful by depending less on free agents and more on developing players out of their own farm system.

In his chapter on building a team brand, Gennaro offers a host of broad sweep generalizations and arbitrary weights to make standard, prosaic recommendations common to the marketing literature. One of his more remarkable statements is found on pages 193-194. To wit: “A team that tries to get through a season with a roster filled with fringe players and minor league prospects is testing the patience of its fans and risking its credibility. Even the 56-win Kansas City Royals had proven major leaguers on their 2005 squad. Matt Stairs and Terrence Long, along with their star player Mike Sweeney, complemented a host of youngsters. For all their faults in the 2005 season, the Royals maintained the credibility and trust of their fans by not ridding themselves of Sweeney’s $11 million contract. For the 2006 season, the Royals loaded up on mature talent with Reggie Sanders, Doug Mientkiewicz, Mark Redman, and Mark Grudzielanek, giving hope to the K.C. faithful.” This worthy team won 62 of its 162 games in 2006.

Gennaro’s closing chapter has some gems on the stadium economic impact literature. On page 238, he writes: “The stadium dialogue seems to quickly degenerate into a ‘he said-she said’ by ‘greedy owners’ and ‘ungrateful municipalities’ about who gets the most benefit from a new ballpark and consequently, the appropriate mix of public versus private funding. The two sides seem to argue so vehemently out of self-interest, citing the results of previous parks, selectively choosing the data that fits their points of view, that they neglect to get at the key issue. ‘Do stadiums enhance the local economy?’ may be the wrong question. The right question is ‘Under what conditions can stadiums enhance the local economy?’” He goes on to claim that if a team plays more day games that it will help local commerce more and, therefore, cities should bargain in their lease agreements to have teams play more day games. His discussion here is either disingenuous or completely ignorant of the academic literature on the subject of economic impact.

In the end, Gennaro’s monograph misses its mark. His treatment of baseball’s economic system offers little of academic value, general reader interest, or team management assistance.

J.C. Bradbury’s The Baseball Economist is a collection of wide-ranging essays on different elements of the game that the author believes are amenable to economic or statistical analysis. The quality of these essays is sharply uneven, with the stronger contributions related to evaluating on-field performance. His topics range from why there are no left-handed catchers, to valuing the worth of a pitching coach, whether having a strong on-deck batter actually helps the current batter or not, why there are more hit batsmen in the American League, a game theory treatment of the game’s steroid problem, assessing the role of entrepreneurial behavior in the front office, an evaluation of the competitive balance issue, an introduction to sabermetrics, how much a ballplayer is worth, and whether MLB is a monopoly. Below I consider some of the collection’s high points and low points. The latter, unfortunately, are more plentiful.

My favorite Bradbury entry convincingly attacks a longstanding baseball myth -- a strong on-deck batter helps the current batter. Bradbury uses data from 1984-1992 to test this relationship and what he comes up with is the following: for every 100 points higher is the OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage of the current batter) of the on-deck batter, the current batter will walk 2.6 percent less, will have a 1.1 percent lower batting average and will hit 3.0 percent fewer home runs. He controls for the OPS of the current batter, the game situation, the ballpark and other factors. Hence, Bradbury concludes that a strong on-deck batter does create an incentive for the pitcher not to walk the current batter, but it also encourages the pitcher to add focus and make tougher pitches in the strike zone, thereby lowering the current hitter’s average and power. While these relationships are statistically significant, their actual impact is very small. His conclusion appears solid and one wonders how long it will take before Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Jon Miller, et al. catch on.

Bradbury’s chapter on whether it pays for a manager to argue with the umpire is provocative, but unsatisfying. He describes the phenomenon of a manager protesting a call as rent-seeking behavior. The manager attempts to bully the ump, so that the ump will remember the unpleasant experience and will think twice before making another close call against the manager’s team. Bradbury suggests that sometimes the managers succeed in this endeavor, though the statistical evidence he presents is too weak to support his claim. It is rent seeking because there is no net gain, no output increase, just a transfer of marginal calls from one team to another. Meanwhile, the fans, according to Bradbury, have their utility lowered because they have to spend a few extra minutes at the game due to these fits of managerial distemper. Well maybe, but it is also possible that the fans enjoy managerial protests both because they are amusing and because it vicariously vents their own frustration at bad umpire calls. As for a few extra minutes at the ballpark – hey, it’s baseball.

In another interesting essay, Bradbury assembles evidence that Leo Mazzone is actually a pitching coach who makes a positive difference. Bradbury compares pitchers performance under Mazzone with their performance before and after working with him. The evidence appears to support superior skills for Mazzone. Bradbury also explains Mazzone’s philosophy and method. Mazzone has now been pitching coach for the Baltimore Orioles for two years. Perhaps it is time for corroboratory evidence.

From here the book goes downhill. In one chapter Bradbury discusses the presumed advantage that big city teams have. He concludes that (p. 80): “the advantage appears to be slight and virtually meaningless.” His argument here is sloppy. Bradbury’s simple regression finds that variance in city size accounts for 40 percent of the variance in win percentage over a period of years. This seems to indicate a rather substantial impact of city size. Further, the author fails to consider the interactive effect of city size and a team owning its own regional sports channel (RSN), the number of large corporations in the market, or the size of MLB’s assigned team television market – three factors that would have reinforced the effect of city size. Along the way, Bradbury misapprehends the functioning of the amateur draft and overlooks the unequalizing effect of the posting system with Japanese baseball.

In his chapter on what makes for an effective front office, Bradbury singles out two desiderata: having a good team on the field and having a low payroll. Of course, all teams would like that combination, but no team can win every year on a modest payroll. A franchise is a business and there are more factors behind whether or not it will be a successful organization, including effective promotional efforts, good relations with and involvement in the host community, charitable activities, new investments, and profitability, among others. Bradbury then attempts to quantify team rankings by adding up the value produced by all the players on each team and subtracting team payroll, yielding his “net value of team play.” Every team has a positive net value except his lowest ranking team, the Yankees with a negative net value of $29.8 million during 2003-05. This anomalous result comes from the wrongheaded methodology he uses to estimate player marginal revenue product (to be discussed below) and from the narrow definition he adopts to define team success.

His chapter on steroids in baseball employs game theory to model the choice that a player makes whether or not to indulge. He argues that when every player chooses to use steroids it is a Nash equilibrium. This result, however, appears to depend on his arbitrarily chosen values for the supposed productivity gain and the health costs (only $500,000) from indulgence. Bradbury’s analysis ignores the enormous uncertainty that surrounds this choice for players.

Another chapter, “Scouts and Stat-Heads,” provides a generally useful introduction to sabermetric analysis, but Bradbury gets a bit starry-eyed over the presumed power of sabermetrics. On page 147, for instance, Bradbury writes: “Old ways and old scouting methods may disappear, but the end result is a good one for the fan: better and cheaper baseball.” No team is contemplating the elimination of traditional scouting methods, nor is one likely to in the future. New statistical methods have been employed to supplement, not supplant, traditional scouting.

Bradbury’s essay “How to Judge a Hitter or a Pitcher” also overplays the sabermetric hand. Baseball analysts frequently refer to a statistic called hitting with “runners in scoring position” (RISP). It is meant to represent how effective a clutch hitter a player is. Bradbury says folderol: “The problem is that hitting with RISP is not a skill … but a statistical anomaly.” (p. 155) “If hitting with RISP is something a hitter can purposely alter, I have a hard time believing he is holding something back in non-RISP situations” (p. 156). There you have it – there is no such thing as clutch hitting. This is an awfully linear, materialist view of the world where a player’s emotions and his state of physical depletion over a 162-game season play no role. Further, Bradbury is being inconsistent. In his chapter about the on-deck batter, he asserted that a pitcher can ramp it up and pitch more carefully and effectively to the current batter when a strong batter is on deck. So, in Bradbury’s world, pitchers can focus and pitch in the clutch, but hitters can’t turn the same trick. Later in the chapter, Bradbury endorses the proposition from Moneyball that on-base percentage (OBP) is three times as important as slugging percentage (SLG). He arrives at this outcome by running a multiple regression of runs on batting average, OBP and SLG. The coefficient on OBP is almost three times that on SLG. The problem here is not only that the arguments are collinear and the coefficients are less reliable, but that SLG (it counts a homerun as four hits, a triple as three, etc.) is a much higher number than OBP. The coefficient, therefore, will necessarily be smaller on SLG. If elasticity is used instead of the estimated coefficient, OBP is 1.8 times greater than SLG.

Bradbury also discusses the assessment of pitching skills in this chapter. The main argument here is that a pitcher’s ERA from one year to the next is highly variable, but that a pitcher’s walks, strikes and home runs allowed are more stable over time. The inference is that ERA depends more on outside factors, such as a team’s fielding prowess, and, hence, is a poor measure of the inherent skills of a pitcher. While there is something compelling to this logic, it seems caution is in order. First, a pitcher’s skills may actually vary from year to year, along with his ERA, as other factors change, such as, his ballpark, his pitching coach, his bullpen, his team’s offense, the angle of his arm slot, his confidence level, etc. This variability does not mean that the skill is spurious. Second, if all we consider is strikeouts, walks and home runs, what are we saying about sinkerball pitchers who induce groundballs or pitchers who throw fastballs with movement or offspeed pitches that induce weak swings and popups? Didn’t Bradbury already write that with a strong on-deck batter, pitchers can pitch more effectively within the strike zone?

Next, Bradbury offers a chapter on the worth of a ballplayer. He gets off to a bad start here by misrepresenting the functioning of the players’ market and the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. He then misspecifies his team revenue function, leaving out RSN ownership, the number of large corporations in the host market, the size of the team’s assigned television territory, among other factors. But the fatal problem is that Bradbury’s methodology unwittingly identifies a player’s average revenue product, not his marginal revenue product. By his reckoning, all of a team’s revenue is attributed to the players, leaving nothing left over for front offices expenses, stadium expenses, minor league operations, or profits. Given this misstep, it is not surprising that Bradbury finds players at all levels (under reserve, arbitration eligible and free agents) are paid less than what he estimates they are worth.

Bradbury then moves on to the baseball product market, asking “Is MLB a Monopoly?” Bucking all scholarly analysis and legal decisions on the question, Bradbury writes (p. 201): “I’m not sure MLB is a monopoly.” Then, in a comedy of errors, he explains his ambivalence. He writes that Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis’ decision that baseball was not interstate commerce gave the game its antitrust exemption and that (p. 203) “the Supreme Court has upheld the Landis decision on several occasions.” Here Bradbury is confusing two cases. The first was a suit brought by the owners of the Federal League teams in January 1915 against baseball’s reserve clause. This case went before Judge Landis. Landis, however, never issued a decision. The parties settled at the end of the year. The second was a litigation brought by the owners of the Baltimore Terrapins of the Federal League because they did not believe that the terms of the settlement were fair to their franchise. After losing in district court (where Landis played no role), baseball appealed the decision and won. The Terrapins then appealed before the Supreme Court, where the case was heard in April 1922. A few months later the Supreme Court decided in baseball’s favor and the antitrust exemption was born.

Bradbury then distorts the record further by asserting (p. 205): “At the heart of the argument that MLB acts like a monopolist is the existence of the antitrust exemption.” He cites no sources for this claim, because there are none. Each team sport league is a monopolist because it is the sole producer of its product and has no close substitutes. The NFL has no blanket exemption and it is a monopoly; likewise the NBA. Bradbury then writes referring to the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB that “each of these enjoys some antitrust exemptions for collective bargaining with labor unions ….” Here, of course, it is not an exemption granted to the leagues, but a general statutory exemption granted to all labor unions by the Clayton Act of 1914. Similarly, the non-statutory exemption --which enables a union to surrender certain labor market rights in exchange for other benefits in arms’ length bargaining -- applies generally to all U.S. industries. Bradbury continues (p. 208): “There is no strong evidence that the antitrust exemption provides any monopoly privileges to MLB other than protecting it from expensive lawsuits.” While the value of baseball’s exemption today is not what it used to be, there is still a good case to be made that MLB’s minor leagues and perhaps its amateur draft could not exist in their present form were it not for the exemption. (This matter is actually rather complicated because any of these arrangements can be subjected to a rule of reason interpretation, balancing their pro- and anti-competitive effects.)

Bradbury’s last essay argues that the market for top-level professional baseball in the United States is contestable. If this were true, then the earlier question about whether or not MLB is a monopoly might be moot. Here Bradbury makes two points. First, if there is an aspect of the industry that is not a natural monopoly and, hence, constitutes an artificial barrier to entry, it is the subsidies from local governments that teams receive for the construction of their stadiums. But, he avers, this is not really an issue because (p. 220) “the public does not seem averse to subsidizing major sports teams from leagues other than the dominant existing league.” It is clear that Bradbury has never been involved in starting a new or non-dominant league. His notion that politicians are not averse to providing subsidies to teams from these upstart leagues is just plain wrong. Second, Bradbury goes on to argue that MLB’s market is contestable. He does this by discussing the emergence of the American Association in 1882 and the American League in 1901. He further adduces what he erroneously calls the “Central League” (real name: the Continental League) forcing baseball to expand the number of its teams in 1961. Leaving details aside, the difficulty with Bradbury’s claim is that the industry’s economic structure today is very different from what it was 57 or 120 years ago.

Bradbury, then, whiffs in his effort to expand his analysis beyond the narrow confines of the baseball diamond. After a promising beginning, The Baseball Economist fails in its intent to expose the real game.

By Michael E. LomaxSyracuse University Press, 2003. 222 pp., illus., notes, bibliography, index. $39.95, cloth; $19.95, paper. Review by Jeffrey SackmannAs any avid reader of baseball history is aware, it is a rare book these days that covers truly fresh material. It is even rarer for that material to be of substantial historical and cultural import, with implications on other extensively studied aspects of baseball’s past.

Michael E. Lomax’s book, Black Baseball Entrepreneurs, uncovers and analyzes a part of baseball history that is both of these things. Both 19th-century baseball researchers and Negro League historians know just how sparse contemporary coverage is of early Black baseball. Yet by combining the more commonly utilized sources—Sporting Life, Sol White’s History of Colored Baseball, and the papers of the Philadelphia Pythians—with an array of less-familiar primary sources, Lomax accomplishes, if nothing else, an impressive feat of research.

Most histories of early baseball address the major events that created segregated baseball: the exclusion of the Pythians by the National Association of Base Ball Players in 1867, and the series of events in the mid-1880s that included Fleet Walker’s appearance in the American Association and Adrian “Cap” Anson’s belligerence when it came to taking the field with a Black player. And with that sketch, the more general histories consign Black baseball to footnotes until after the first World War.

Lomax ably fills the gap. Despite the fragmented nature of the Black game in the 19th century, his book offers a coherent narrative from, as he terms it, “a perspective that is closer to business and economic history.” That’s probably the only way such a history could be written. Little is known of all but the most famous 19th-century Black players—indeed, more information is available concerning the community leaders who formed teams, such as Octavius Catto of the Pythians—and surviving statistics from the era make later Negro League records look like a playground for sabermetricians. By focusing on the entrepreneurs who improvised methods to make Black baseball a profitable entertainment similar to the White game, Lomax is able to utilize a broader cultural approach that sheds light on the experience of Black baseball that a biographical and statistical perspective never could.

Non-academic readers may find Lomax’s writing a bit scholarly for their tastes: in delineating the subtleties of Black culture, he provides perhaps more, and more technically phrased, cultural context than is necessary for his history. If one is only interested in his biographical sketches of entrepreneurs or recaps of efforts to crown a Black “champion,” the academic cultural history may be tiresome.

Such stylistic concerns, however, do not lessen the incredible value of his accumulated research. Nor should they prevent any serious student of 19th-century or Negro League baseball from keeping it handy on their bookshelf. Even the bibliography is a document of value; the scope of Lomax’s study is so unique among baseball histories that his sources should provide a crucial starting point for anyone wishing to expand upon his work.

Republished by permission

]]>info@bizofbaseball.com (Michael E. Lomax)Book ReviewsMon, 04 Sep 2006 14:01:00 +0000May The Best Team Winhttp://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=143:may-the-best-team-win&catid=25:book-reviews&Itemid=40
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Baseball economics and public policy

By Andrew ZimbalistReview by Don Coffin

Andrew Zimbalist (Professor of Economics, Smith College) has written a compelling, accessible introduction to the economic issues surrounding the current state of major league baseball. He builds on the large body of theoretical and empirical work on the economics of professional sports. The book has a definite point of view--that major league baseball suffers from serious management failures, both at the individual-team level and in the corporate structure of the commissioner's office. Zimbalist reviews briefly but with sufficient depth the issues of baseball's antitrust exemption, competitive balance, profitability, stadium building, and labor relations. He closes with policy suggestions that will be controversial for some readers. Zimbalist's approach presumes that team owners are profit motivated, a position some readers may find difficult to accept. The book will be valuable to those interested in the economic issues of professional sports, more than to scholars working in the economics of sports, who will regret the lack of a separate bibliography of theoretical materials.

Former commissioner Fay Vincent aptly subtitled his 2002 book “A Baseball Valentine”. At just over 300 pages Vincent takes the reader through nine innings (chapters) that range far and wide.

This very personal memoir includes his favorite moments with baseball icons Joe Dimaggio and Ted Williams, his own life and the influence of his father (a college umpire and referee from whom he learned respect for the rules of the game), his relationship with A. Bartlett Giamatti and the Rose investigation, his time as commissioner and run-ins with George Steinbrenner, and finally his assessment of baseball’s historical wrongs in its treatment of African Americans, and his financial prescription for fixing the game he clearly respects. Sprinkled throughout the book Vincent offers some interesting anecdotes including his contrast between Dimaggio, who held a multi-year grudge against Vincent for a remark an employee made (“that was just Joe”), and the graciousness of Stan Musial and Joe Garagiola. His insiders view of meetings with Rose and his lawyers is required reading for anyone who still remains in the Rose camp. And as recounted in his chapter “Baseball is Sorry” Vincent is clearly passionate for Negro League players and recounts his actions in helping Negro League players obtain health care and pension benefits. However, he and Giamatti’s strategy for addressing historical wrongs led them to hire Bill White as president of the National League solely on the basis of his race as Vincent proudly admits.

Readers of this web site, however, will be most interested in Vincent's broad and admittedly incomplete plan for baseball's future centering on a corporation that players, owners, and fans all have a stake in that would provide incentive for all parties to act in the best interests of the game. In conjunction with his plan he predicts that media outlets like the Tribune Company will increase their ownership and promotes the idea that MLB rules could be amended to allow the same company to own multiple teams in a region. Not surprisingly, he provides a dim portrait of Bud Selig and appears to have been prescient in his assessment that Selig was interested in the commissioner's position for himself even while ostensibly seeking other candidates including George W. Bush who was seriously considering the position.

Finally, Vincent uses the book to give kudos to friends and many he’s worked with – especially Ralph Branca (“a great friend”), Bart Giamatti (“a friend who enriched me”), and Bush 41 and 43 (“straight shooters”). In all and even if you don’t agree with his views on everything, this is a baseball book worth the read.

Charles Korr (Professor of History, Univ. of Missouri, St. Louis) has written a concise, informative history of the Major League Baseball Players Association, focusing on the years when the MLBPA cohered as a union and achieved the successes that transformed labor relations in professional sports in the US. The author challenges, for the most part successfully, three "widely held assumptions" about the MLBPA: "that the success of the union was inevitable, that it had a well-defined master plan, and that it was [Marvin] Miller's union." But even though Korr's unlimited access to MLBPA files allowed him to provide some heretofore unpublished background information, students of sports labor relations will be familiar with much of this story. For those coming to this story for the first time, Korr's account is the most complete currently available, although the writing style is pedestrian and uninspired.

If you watched baseball in the 1980's and 1990's, you probably remember Fred Claire as Mr. Dodger. He was the figure of class and dignity that became the face of the Dodgers. From pre-Curt Flood to post 1994 strike and beyond, Claire was a part of the Dodgers organization.

The book details how Claire got his start in baseball. He began working as a beat writer before taking the position of Director of Publicity with the Dodgers. In 1987, long-time general manager Al Campanis's gave some unfortunate remarks on ABC's Nightline. Within days, Campanis's handpicked successor was Claire. The book gives many fascinating details about long-time Dodger managers Walt Alston and Tommy Lasorda. There are a couple great sections on trades and free agent signings by the Dodgers during Claire's tenure.

The one thing I noticed throughout the book was how Claire handled every situation good or bad with class. Things ran smoothly for many years in the Dodgers organization. Trade and contract negotiations were held behind closed doors instead of in the media. From the man who drove Claire to the airport to Mr. O'Malley, everyone was treated the same.

The latter fourth of the book details the events leading up to Claire's dismissal from the new Fox Los Angeles Dodgers. The Mike Piazza trade and his final trade involving Hideo Nomo. From working as a beat reporter to General Manager of the Dodgers to working for the new Dodger owners Fox. Claire handled every situation with humility and grace.

Claire's story is a must read for anyone looking to get into the game or simply wanting to know more about the inner workings of a Major League Baseball team. By the end of the book, you will feel like you know Fred Claire.

By Andrew Zimbalist Published by John Wiley & Sons (250 pgs)Review by Maury Brown

For those who have monitoring the state of MLB over the last few years, for the most part (steroid issue and fumbling attempts at contraction aside), the health of MLB as an industry has been rosy.

The relationships among the ownership ranks has grown better in many senses. The relationship between the players' association and management is better. The marketing is better, because there is finally a proper marketing director, which had been missing before 1996.

In addition, the creation of the MLB Advanced Media as a centralized entity has allowed MLB to no longer be an outdated establishment when it comes to burgeoning technological delivery methods for baseball. Revenue sharing is now part of the economic landscape of MLB. The increase in public subsidies of stadium development has been, on one hand, a boon to the owners, and in the view of many, a bane to the tax-paying public. And by working in concert with Congress (a large consideration) to get the players' association to open up the collective bargaining agreement not once but twice, a substantive drug testing policy has been implemented, with steroids as the chief target.

The game has changed in terms of structure as well. Interleague play and the Wild Card are two prominent changes to the game that have come about in the last 20 years.

One may look at the title and assume that this is about ranking Selig—a bio-topic foray into Selig the man, and his stature as viewed through the lens of history. What the book actually does—in strikingly good detail—is outline the change in how MLB has been structured from a governance standpoint. He documents the shift from the image of Landis and the all-powerful commissioner that is wholly independent from his employers (the owners) to the CEO model that Selig exemplifies.

It is this direction, outlining the remarkable changes in how Selig has governed MLB during his tenure, that is the main thrust of the book.

Those who are to purchase the book sight unseen would find that 108 of the 218 pages of the book are purely dedicated to the current commissioner. Zimbalist presents the governance history of Selig’s predecessors in the preceding chapters, touching on Selig throughout. I initially found this to be a bit of a distraction, as I view Selig as a fascinating subject; given his longevity, I would have almost been unsatisfied with a tome of 600 pages on Selig alone. As a whole, however, the details on those who have governed MLB prior to Selig set the stage for understanding the change that has occurred under Selig's watch.

Zimbalist does an adept job of making the book enjoyable for everyone, from those who study the economics and business of baseball from an academic standpoint to anyone who may be interested in furthering their understanding of why MLB, as a body, acts as MLB does.

What reading the book did for me was take the context of the position of commissioner and break it down fundamentally into its various dynamics, and explain the shift that occurred when Selig slid into position after Fay Vincent's ouster. Zimbalist addresses how this action allowed a "settling in period" for the owners after dealing with the turnover of multiple commissioners in a relatively short period, while, as Zimbalist describes it, "[I]t turned out that the owners liked the ambiguity of the commissioner's mission."

Throughout the book, communication between the commissioner and the owners is a critical component. Whether it is outlining how this functioned poorly during Bowie Kuhn's or Vincent's tenure with the owners, or with how it works to Selig's benefit, it is a thread that weaves itself throughout the book.

Selig, for the most part, is viewed by the public as a dull, mostly benign figure in comparison to those he governs. While Jerry Reinsdorf or George Steinbrenner seem to encapsulate the view of the verbose intimidating figure that Zimbalist describes in his section on former commissioner Peter Ueberroth, Selig’s skill at working to get everyone in the room on the same page has been a hallmark of his tenure. He is, at least at this point in time, a man who has few detractors within the ownership brethren.

How big of a factor was Selig’s ability to communicate effectively in the changes we've witnessed during his reign? Zimbalist replied, “I think Bud has superlative communication skills and every ounce of these skills, plus Bud's boundless energy and tenacity, were essential as baseball confronted its revenue-sharing and labor battles of the 1990s. I'm not convinced that Bud continues to depend on open communications today as he did prior to becoming the full, in contrast to the 'acting,' commissioner in 1998.”

Here is the book's description of Selig during his early tenure in the ‘70s and ‘80s with the Brewers and MLB’s inner workings:

As the 1970s wore on, Bud became more inured to baseball’s peculiar management style and began to participate on more owners’ committees. Then in 1980 when Ed Fitzgerald moved to Tennessee and resigned from the Brewers board, Bud became more active and more central to baseball’s governance committees. In part, Bud’s prominent role was because most owners shunned the administrative responsibilities. In part, it was because Bud loved being involved in all aspects of the game. When he was not rooting for his Brewers with all his heart and soul, he was spending hours upon hours talking on the phone with other owners. He listened and always seemed to be on the side of whichever owner he was speaking to.

It is here that we see where Selig’s skill in governance is. He has been a part of the governing of MLB and has been familiar with his constituency for over 30 years now. He’s a known quantity. The owners see him as “one of [them].” It is this, along with Selig’s constant state of achieving consensus and cajoling his fellow owners in a way that looks like lockstep by comparison of the former commissioners (with Landis the possible exception), that makes him so effective in the eyes of those he serves.

Given the short tenures of commissioners up until Selig’s current reign, I asked Zimbalist if continuity has helped lend some stability to the relationships between the owners and the players' association. “Continuity of leadership is important,” Zimbalist said. “It facilitates communication, cooperation and planning. It is possible to develop continuity without having the CEO in the job for 14 or for 17 years however. At some point, too much longevity can become stale. What came before Selig was very counterproductive? Between the end of Kuhn's reign in 1984 and the beginning of Selig's in 1992, counting the bookends, there were five commissioners.”

The book touches on all the key moments and issues that have arisen in Selig’s tenure. The Kohler meetings, the proposed revenue-sharing system that was tied to a salary cap, which led to the 1994 strike; the Blue Ribbon Panel and Collective Bargaining; the 2002-2006 Agreement; the issues surrounding the funding of Miller Park, which to this day remains a sore spot in his home state; the public subsidy debate in stadium construction; the relocation of the Expos to D.C., and the funding issues that have, until last week, finally been resolved in D.C.; and finally, the issue of drug testing as it pertains to steroids, all are covered.

Since Zimbalist has better insight into the role of the commissioner after writing the book, I asked if he felt the position of commissioner of Major League Baseball would continue to evolve. "Yes, I suspect that, as the sports industry changes and the nature of the challenges baseball faces mutates, the parameters of the commissioner's job will shift," Zimbalist said. "One thing I can guarantee: when Selig retires, MLB will adopt the same provision to its constitution that exists in the NFL and NBA constitutions: the commissioner cannot hold stock in any team, either in baseball or any other sport."

Zimbalist has written an insightful and thought-provoking book that peels the cover off the ball of the position of the commissioner to see the threads inside. I highly recommend it.

]]>info@bizofbaseball.com (Andrew Zimbalist)Book ReviewsWed, 30 Aug 2006 14:17:45 +0000Lords of the Realmhttp://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50:lords-of-the-realm&catid=25:book-reviews&Itemid=40
http://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50:lords-of-the-realm&catid=25:book-reviews&Itemid=40By John Helyar Published by Ballantine Books (640 pgs)Review by Larry PrattLords of the Realm is basically a history of Baseball labor relations up to the 1993 Fay Vincent resignation, including a history of the reserve clause and the Ueberroth/owners' collusion scam. The Pete Rose scandal is thrown in for good measure.

This is BB history with an attitude and it's funny. Although I think that overall, LOTR is objective, most readers would consider this view moot--depending which side of the owner/player "war" you're on. It's packed with interesting historical factoids and anecdotes.

A few that really struck me were learning that after Danny Gardella jumped to the Mexican League in 1946 and sued; challenging the reserve clause, following his blacklisting upon his return. When a Federal Court ruled that his case merited trial. Baseball immediately settled out of court.

As for the objectivity of the baseball press, I was surprised to learn that The Sporting News, the baseball bible, received a subsidy from the commissioner's office. I wonder why TSN was so anti-union???? "Salaries amounted to a scant 25% of revenues in the early 70s." "The average salary (in 1967) was $19,000."

A former union steward myself, it's not easy to read this without tilting toward the players. Despite the effort to be objective, the owners, collectively, are impossible to like. Exceptions being Edward Bennett Williams (EBW) and both Ted Turner and Charlie Finley are likeable as characters--not as humans. Other interesting characters are Branch Rickey, Larry MacPhail, "Whalebelly" O'Malley and Roy Hofheinz.

LOTR reads so well that it's almost like reading a novel, except the characters are all too real. Few come off well. Exceptions being Bill Veeck, EBW, Bart Giamatti, John Gaherin (owners' labor rep) and Marvin Miller. Before reading LOTR I knew little about Marvin Miller (MM). Although not the easiest man to like, he's now one of my heroes. As a sometime chess player myself, I was most impressed by MM's tactics and strategy--his building-block strategy to both overcome the reserve system and the near reversal of the master-slave mentality long prevalent in baseball. "But semantics wasn't the key to Miller's winning the players' hearts and minds. It was action. He listened to them. He educated them. And slowly he radicalized them.""His genius wasn't in dictating to the players but in involving them. . . .Miller wasn't a czar but a professor, teaching by the Socratic method."

For this reader, the most entertaining and interesting parts of the book were the quotes. It really is possible for adult-age men to behave like this!!! Too many to list but among my favorites were:

"Why was the grace of the game between the lines so precisely matched by the gracelessness of its off-field conduct?"

"It is sometimes said that there are only two emotions in business: greed and fear."

" . . .having seen the enemy (the owners) up close, they (the players union reps) would never again be intimidated. They could tell, with the visceral instinct of athletes, that it was the other side that was scared."

"Howsam wasn't a skinflint, like a lot of the conservatives. (The joke in baseball was that swimming was invented when Calvin Griffith first came to a toll bridge.")

"Charlie (Finley) has such a high regard for the truth that he uses it sparingly."

"He (Finley) was the equivalent of a Lawyers' Full-Employment Act."

"Whole hillsides are being decimated of standing timber for the exhibits in this case," . . .cutting off further exhibits on "environmental grounds."-- Peter Seitz during the Messersmith arbitration.

"The news swept through baseball like the first reports of Pearl Harbor."(news about the Seitz/Messersmith decision)

"His (Ted Turner) thoughts arrive just in time to be spoken."

"One thing, however, was very clear: the owners had met the enemy and it was themselves."

"Howsam's other great ally was Gussie Busch. He was in his eighties now, but he could still rage at the players, like King Lear on the moor."

". . .he (Ken Moffet) admits to a 'fastball that should have been arrested for loitering.' "

"Gentlemen, " he (Ted Turner) once said, 'we have the only legal monopoly in the country and we're @#$%^&*(*ing it up.'"

"Steinbrenner's quest for a speed merchant also led to Omar Moreno, whose greatest asset as a player was having Tom Reich as an agent."

"Wherever he was, Fay Vincent seemed to feel he was the smartest person in the room."

" 'Does he (George W. Bush) know that he doesn't really run this team?" a writer once asked a Rangers official. 'No, no,' said the official, 'and don't you dare tell him.' "

" 'Comiskey is a baseball emporium for the 90s,' . . . a baseball mall, a place where you can root, root, root for the home team while the home team roots through your pockets, searching for the treasure it needs to pay $5 million for a pitcher.' "

"The new PRC chief had been hired . . .at $750,000; the commissioner was making $650,000. Vincent fell into a funk worthy of Ricky Henderson."

"(Bud) Selig was considered a lightweight. 'Couldn't piss straight without a roadmap,' " as one insider tartly put it."

"Some peers declared him (Bud) the 'best crier in baseball.' "

"To some there was no statement more damning about the baseball business than the fact that Bud Selig was a leader. Detractors called him Bud Light."

"Selig was a poll-taker really, taking soundings as he worked the phones and sensing when a body of opinion had reached critical mass. Only then did he jump out in front of it."

"Vincent's greatest friend and ally was Fred Wilpon, who would rather sacrifice his firstborn than surrender another dime of Mets revenue." "He (Fay Vincent) had the serene self-confidence of a man about to be blindsided."

"An agent was out taking a walk one day when God came up alongside him. The two started a chat about baseball. 'God, when will we ever see another .400 hitter?' the agent asked. 'Not in your lifetime,' answered God. 'What about a 30-game winner. When will that happen again?' 'Not in your lifetime,' answered God. 'What about revenue-sharing? When will the big-city owners agree to revenue-sharing to help the teams in smaller cities?' God smiled and said, 'Not in my lifetime.' "

Whatever side of the owner/player issue you're on, I highly recommend LOTR as an interesting, informative and entertaining read. A rare combination. I don't know whether it's still in print or has been updated, but most used bookstores would have it.